Monday, January 30, 2017

It's time to look at the Rebel ships that you're either unlikely to add - and thus need a firm spot in your list from the beginning - or that if you would add them it would by necessity be when you are in a significant lead in resources. Not something to count on, in other words.

Green Knight shows up dominating POD #3 with his fighter light list - 4 activations and 5 deployments plus a smaller than average 395 bid means it isn't very subtle, but so far no one has been able to find a way to deal with it. With a tournament high 27 points in the POD round, he has slashed his way into the eliminations and a matchup against the runner up of POD #6.

His Heavy Hitters are an ISDII Avenger, geared for a combination of anti-fighter Flak and damage with Darth Vader, as well as a Demolisher II - though geared traditionally, and an Instigator Raider, again not specificially geared towards Flak. A lone Suppressor fills out his list, escorting in Ciena Ree and Valen Rudor - cheap anti-squadron fighters for him to delay with.

Will this be enough to keep him going as the elimination heats up? Stay tuned to find out!

Not counting Green Knight, Miedo had himself a very good run of his POD oppopnents, and slips in as the runner up. His list is an Ozzel based swarm, with 6 activations and 9 deployments to get the heavy hitting Demolisher into prime position. Supporting Demolisher is a TRC Arquitens with Needa, and a multi-purpose Raider, as well as 3 different Gozantis. One has gone Slicer Tools, another Comms Net, and the last is a lifeboat for ol' Ozzel himself. His 389 bid is relatively high, but not completely out of the park like some other first player or bust strategists.

For squadrons, he has gone anti-fighter heavy, taking Valen Rudor, Dengar, Mithel, Howl, and a pair of TIEs to try and farm and delay any bomber heavy build from approach without them taking heavy casualties.

Friday, January 27, 2017

The Empire is on the defensive! Rebel victories a Raider's Point and Polanis has brought fresh rebel organizations into the fight, while the Imperial's own assault on Selonia Outpost was pushed back. It is a dark time for the Empire, who is committed to turning things around with an offensive onslaught.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Congratulations to those who finished POD# 4 of the Vassal 2017 World Cup! They are the first POD to complete all of their games (POD #1 stalled out after crowning its winner / runner up). And what did they bring us? Well, one of them will have to play one of these:

Friday, January 20, 2017

Let's talk about building ourselves a Rebel fleet, specifically remembering that the first 400 points we start with has a hard limit of 1 upgrade (not counting commander) per ship. What is the best thing to put on each of your ships? What general principles should you use?

Thursday, January 19, 2017

The first POD is (more or less) complete, and go figure, it is POD #1. With MattShadowlord and thecactusman17 playing out their final game for glory (he can't catch up with Matt, unfortunately), it looks like MattShadowlord and Reath28 will be advancing to the elimination round.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

I've started two rounds of Corellian Conflict now, both times as the Rebels, both times as the Grand Admiral, so needless to say I've been putting a lot of thought into the setup for Corellian Conflict, specifically starting locations as well as good starting lists. We'll be talking about lists later, but I'd like to talk about starting locations now:

Friday, January 13, 2017

The first battle of the Corellian Conflict was a bloody affair, as General Dodonna was committed to bringing resources back to the Alliance, but was not prepared for Darth Vader to be guarding the caravan himself.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

It is a time of chaos in the Corellia system. Corellia itself might be firmly in Imperial hands, but rumors of rebellion popping up throughout the sector has caused significant consternation with Imperial forces.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

"Steven and Dirty Jon play a new player friendly game of Star Wars Armada Wave V. The lists are somewhat simplified, and a lot of explaining goes into the decision making."A good video to watch if you are new to the game and want a detailed explanation of what is going on.

Time to talk about another new feature of Wave 5, the Snipe keyword. We already discussed it to a point in Corellian Conflict's TIE Interceptor, but now we see the Rebel variant, and it comes on a generic!

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Here we have two of the more interesting new mechanics of the new Wave 5 squadrons. The Lambda-Class Shuttle shows off the new Relay keyword as well as the Strategic keyword. Let's take a look at the shuttle, and what those new keywords can mean for your overall squadron strategy.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Time to look at the final of the two Wave 5 ships, the Pelta-Class Cruiser from the Phoenix Home expansion. It is an interesting ship that isn't "great" at fighting, but can be used as a platform for a new type of upgrade - Fleet Support. Each one has you spend a specific token in the start of the ship phase to give yourself a very nice buff.

I remember playing X-Wing in Wave 4 and being super excited that my favorite ship was coming out. That's right, the TIE Defender, the best Expanded Universe fighter ever designed. Expensive, sure, but better than anything the Rebellion or Empire ever fielded up to that point. It came with some nasty tricks for its time (White K-Turn!) and a mean stat line.

Also at that time came out the OTHER Expanded Universe TIE project that was the best and most expensive that it could be. It was from an inferior game, and did stupid cloaking things. The TIE Phantom. And as much as I wanted to make my beautiful TIE Defenders work, it was clear they were outclassed by the TIE Phantom's movement shenanigans.